Activision's Dan Amrich has responded to online abuse targeted
at David Vonderhaar over tweaks to weapons in Call of Duty:
Black Ops II for Xbox 360.

The patch
affected three weapons in the game -- two snipers and an assault
rifle. The AN-94 had its damage slightly reduced, the DSR 50 had
its rate of fire reduced and the Ballista had its rate of fire
slightly reduced.

After the patch was released, Vonderhaar (also known as Vahn)
began receiving online abuse from fans of the game who felt the
tweaks would have a negative impact on their experience (and that
is putting it mildly).

Explaining the need for the changes, Vahn tweeted: "Guns have
powerbands and learning curves. Over time, both change. As one goes
up, so does the other. That's the short answer to 'why now.'"

In a blog post titled "Stop threatening game developers", Amrich adds: "Of, in the
course of millions of hours of gameplay and the data to go with it,
weapons are found to be more effective or less effective than they
should be to keep that performance balanced, they are adjusted.
This has happened with every Call of Duty game that's come
out for the last few years, and it will continue to happen -- a
gun's stats being adjusted should not be a surprise to anybody at
this point."

Vahn opted for a "catching more flies with honey" approach over
on his twitter account, responding to constructive feedback and
reports of bugs but Amrich used his blog post to call out a wider
problem within the industry.

Says Amrich: "Vahn often gets told he should die in a fire or
kill himself or is a horrible person. If anybody thinks for a
second that this is okay, it is not. But if the loudest voices in
the Call of Duty 'community' act like an angry mob
instead, guess how the entire world views Call of Duty?
Now consider that these Internet Tough Guy rants and demands are
not unique to COD, but exist everywhere, in many gaming
communities. This is why the world often does not take gaming
seriously; this is why gamers are assumed to be immature, whiny
assholes. Because the immature, whiny assholes are louder."

The gaming industry is still in the process of forging its
identity in the wider consciousness and rapidly escalating torrents
of abuse which follow a patch update don't help build that identity
as a positive one.